Faces of Love: Three Vignettes
by Hanako Miyuki
Summary: RHr. DMB!BZ. HPSB, RL. Three vignettes. Seven people. Not all romances are happy and not all endings are good, but all love stories are beautiful.


**Faces of Love: Three Vignettes**  


* * *

**Love Lost: Fairy Tale**  
(Ron and Hermione) 

It's a simple story. Once upon a time, a lonely boy met a lonely girl, and they  
became friends, and they fell in love, but they didn't want to tell each other,  
because they were scared and overwhelmed, so they bickered and argued  
and quarreled to cover up their real feelings. But everyone saw through them,  
because how could they hate each other and trust each other at the same  
time like the boy and the girl often did when they had adventures with their  
famous friend, and it took them some time but they finally decided they didn't   
want to be scared and overwhelmed anymore. 

It happened under the twinkling stars, who knew what was happening and  
giggled amongst themselves, and the sly crescent moon, who hid her face  
behind the darkness but peeked through her fingers anyway. It happened  
under the great oak tree, who was quiet and wise and watching. He brought  
her out of the castle that was their school, and words spilled forth, like a  
floodgate from his heart, and she understood, and she smiled, and the words,  
at first abrupt and mumbled and hastened, turned soft and sweet and loving.

The boy and the girl grew up, and they stayed together for a long time, and  
everyone was happy for them. The wedding happened under the same  
twinkling stars and the same crescent moon, and he was regal in his black  
robes but his cheeks were as red as his hair, and she was beautiful in her  
white dress but her smile was even more radiant than what she wore. They  
couldn't stop smiling.

Happily ever after was just around the corner, but the boy and the girl went a  
different direction. They didn't think much of it when it first began, because  
they have always bickered before, but the fights grew worse, and the boy was  
always jealous and the girl was always working, and the stars never twinkled  
and the moon always hid, and they were no longer happy.

And the fairy tale that was their story is not real, because if it were, then the  
boy and the girl would know in their hearts that love was enough, but it wasn't,  
not really, and he was angry and she was tired, and they decided they have  
had enough of fairy tales.

The boy and the girl were very quiet when they said goodbye. Her bags were  
in the hall and his trunks had been loaded, and their house looked as empty  
as it had felt. Neither said a word.

They loved each other still, but he was scared and she was overwhelmed and  
they didn't want to make a mistake again. They tried not to cry.

And the boy and the girl became lonely again.

* * *

**Love Unspoken: Cycle**  
(Draco and Blaise) 

This is how it begins. 

It is fifth year, and it starts out as any other day would, except it isn't any other day. You sit on your place and he sits on his, and you talk to your friends, but you say something funny and loud and unlike you and he turns to look and you see him just as he does so and he gives you a curious expression, and he sees you for the first time, though you have been classmates for so long. You pay it no attention, refusing to acknowledge the delicious shiver that ran down your spine when his gray eyes went over you, because you know him and his games and you have no desire to be part of them. 

He is waiting for you inside your dormitory when you come. You know he has been waiting because he looks at you, and he shifts his gaze to stare at you fully, and you don't know what to do when he steps up to you, smiling his cocksure smile and pushing you against the wall. 

And you kiss. 

It is funny, having his mouth over yours, because it doesn't feel as if it were anything out of the ordinary, and it isn't. His games, really, but you can play too. You grab his collar and reverse your positions so that he is the one against the wall, and you can feel the sides of his mouth curving upward, and you smile too. 

This is how it goes. 

You don't speak words to each other. It is a silent agreement, when you kiss and when you touch and one night he comes to your bed and you don't say anything. Some nights he is with you, some nights elsewhere, and you could care less. On the nights he spends with you, you let him sleep in, though he rarely does. It doesn't matter. 

And you play. 

You know what you are, and you know what you are not, and you accept this, and you live with it and you deal with it as you should. You have no commitments, no agreements-of the spoken sort, at the very least-and you go on with your lives as if you weren't lovers. Sometimes you see him with someone else-against classroom walls, behind closed doors, in the quiet of your dormitory-taking and taking and taking, and when he comes that night you make sure he begs instead. Sometimes he sees you when you watch him, and he smiles and his gray eyes never leave your face and they continue to watch you in your dreams. 

His father is arrested and nobody knows what to do. They whisper and talk and shake their heads and pretend not to say anything when he comes, but their eyes pity him and judge him. He does not say anything and he acts as if nothing happened, and he is such a good actor that everyone tries goes along with it. They try to smile at his insults and try not to imagine what home must be like for him now, with a criminal for a father and a wreck for a mum. 

You hear him at night, when he thinks no one does, and you don't know what to do. You shouldn't care, and you don't, but you want the muffled crying to stop, because it isn't him and it keeps you awake, so you climb onto his bed and hold him to stop him from shaking. He falls asleep and so do you. 

This is how it ends. 

It is seventh year and you are graduating. He has not been with anyone else but you in two years, and nothing is said, though it is only too clear that labels don't have to define what you already know you have become. You say nothing and you do nothing except what you know what to do, but there are things that need no words to be understood, and sometimes there are understandings that need no acknowledgements through words. 

For you there is no choice at all. You know what needs to be done, what your duties are, _who_ you are. It is not even a question anymore. You simply accept this as it is, and the last night goes by as if it were any other night. The next day you share a barely perceptible glance, and then you graduate. As quickly as it begins, it ends. 

And you part. 

You do not speak to him for years. He fills in his father's shoes as a respectable businessman (and probably also in his father's other, less respectable endeavors), and you take over the family business. You marry a highly respectable girl from your class in lavish ceremonies, with over a thousand guests including former Housemates and acquaintances in attendance, and it is through her that you hear of his engagement to his childhood sweetheart a year later. You are invited to their engagement party in their manor, and it is the first time in a long while that you see him face to face. 

He is the same white blonde hair and gray eyes, and for a moment you believe you are in Hogwarts again. Your wife pulls his fiancee to one side and they talk of clothes, and glamour charms, and whatever it is women love speaking of, and you are left alone. You walk up the stairs into a room empty and quiet, and he smiles and it is the same cocksure smile, and you wonder what else of him has not changed, and he looks at you the way he did that day in fifth year, and you know that you have not changed. 

There are no words and there are no questions, and this is what you know. There is a shiver in the air between you, like the one that ran down your spine with his first look, and a silence that speaks for itself, like the one you shared that last night, and when he kisses you again your lips curl upwards, and there is no semblance of past, because it is over and written, nor of the future, because you know what you are supposed to do and that you cannot do anything about it. There is only now: his mouth on yours and your body in his and your hands on each other. 

And this is how it begins again. 

* * *

**Love Unreturned: Secrets**  
(Harry/Sirius and Remus)  
(inspired by R. Zamora Linmark's The Secret) 

Harry has a secret. He has a secret because no one can ever find out. No one can ever find out because no one can ever understand. No one can ever understand because it is not common, and only he and Sirius can understand because to them, it is not uncommon at all. It is not wrong either, which is what most people think being uncommon is, because it doesn't feel wrong. 

Harry thinks it's a secret because no one else sees him when he sneaks into Sirius' room, in the quiet of the night or in the stillness of dull day. He thinks no else sees him because he wears his Invisibility Cloak, and he tiptoes and he is very careful and quiet. He thinks it's a secret because only Sirius knows he is coming, at the other side of the door, with his robes undone and a knowing look that only Sirius can have, because only he knows. 

Harry thinks it's a secret because only he knows what it feels to be touched by Sirius. He knows it's a secret because when he lies down with Sirius only he feels Sirius' fingers on his skin. Only he knows what the calloused skin on his forearm and chest and stomach feel like. He knows it's a secret because only he can tell that Sirius smells like the world after a light rain, and only he knows that Sirius and coffee taste the same. 

Harry thinks it's a secret because when Sirius bends down to kiss his face, and his chest, and his stomach, only he can feel the tickle of Sirius' beard and Sirius' hair. He thinks it's a secret because only he knows how Sirius' hair is coarse and rough and how it crumples just so when he clutches it in his fists. 

Harry thinks it's a secret because when Sirius buries himself between his legs, only he can hear his heart beating louder and louder, only he can feel his heart pounding harder and harder. He thinks it's a secret because only he knows what it feels like, only he knows when the exact moment comes because that's when his heart stops and so does the world, for the briefest of moments, and that's when his breath catches. He thinks it's a secret because in that moment, only he and Sirius are real. 

Harry thinks it's a secret when that moment comes and they gasp and cry out loud enough that the walls can hear them. 

Harry thinks it's a secret because even if the walls can hear, they cannot talk. Harry thinks that even if they could, Sirius puts a Silencing Charm on them so that they could not say anything anyway. 

Harry thinks it's a secret because only he and Sirius can hear their sighs, and not even the walls could listen when they speak, after. He knows it's a secret because that's what he tells Sirius, who shakes in his arms and says no one can find out, and he wants to tell Sirius he cannot be scared. 

Harry thinks it's a secret even if he doesn't want it to be. 

~*~*~*~ 

Harry thinks it's still a secret when he creeps into Sirius' room, that day after the full moon. He thinks it's still a secret because he doesn't think I can smell him beneath the Invisibility Cloak he wears or that I cannot hear him tip-toeing on the floor. He doesn't think that the creaking on the wooden boards are not deafening, that the smell of his skin is not sharp in the humid air, but they are. 

Harry thinks it's a secret because he doesn't see me follow the sound of his footsteps to where Sirius' room is, and he doesn't see me wait until I hear the soft shutting of the door before I follow. Harry thinks only he can keep a secret. 

Harry thinks it's a secret because he doesn't see me leaning over the door and peeking through a crack. He thinks it's still a secret because he doesn't know I see what he sees, Sirius with robes undone and a knowing look on his face. 

He thinks it's a secret because he doesn't see my eyes narrow when Sirius bends down to kiss his face and chest and stomach, and he doesn't hear my breathing stop when I see his hands tangle with Sirius' hair. He thinks it's a secret because only he knows what Sirius' hair feels like in his hands. 

Only he knows what Sirius feels like in his hands. 

He thinks it's a secret because he doesn't know how hard I clench my fists, so hard my nails draw blood and leave half-moon cuts on my palm, when Sirius buries himself between his legs. He thinks only he can hear the thunderous pounding of a heart when that happens. He thinks it's a secret because he doesn't know that when his world stops mine crumbles, for the briefest of moments, so I know when that moment comes too. 

Harry thinks it's a secret because even when that moment comes and they gasp and cry loud enough that the walls can hear, they will not be able to talk. He thinks it's a secret because he doesn't know the walls aren't what he should worry about. 

Harry thinks it's a secret because that's what he tells Sirius, who shakes in his arms and says no one can find out, even though Harry doesn't want it to be. 

Harry thinks it's a secret even if he doesn't want it to be, because Sirius does. 

It wouldn't be a secret if it were me, but it isn't me, so it is. 


End file.
